Page:The Parson's Handbook - 2nd ed.djvu/31

Rh Book, that the place shall be such, and the Minister shall so turn himself, ‘as the people may best hear.’ The concluding sentence, however, of the rubric in the Second Book—its one conservative provision— was carefully retained through all revisions—’And the Chancels shall remain as they have done in times past.’ No alteration of the pre-Reformation chancel was ordered in the First Book; the former arrangement was ordered to be continued in the Second Book, and each succeeding revision has repeated it verbatim. Yet a century ago in vast numbers of churches the chancels, instead of their remaining as in times past, were looked upon as a kind of lumber-room, to be cleared out once a quarter for the administration of the Holy Communion, or else as a place for the erection of select pews for those in goodly apparel to whom (on payment of a consideration) could be said, ‘Sit thou here in a good place.’ This alone would suffice to show how utterly different were the practices of our grandfathers from the mind of the Church of England.

So far, then, by a plain consideration of the introduction to the Prayer Book we have seen that its ‘mind’’ is steeped in the old ceremonial traditions of the Bible, of the ‘ancient Fathers,’ and of that which was old in the sense of being the medieval practice up to 1549; that it forbids any ceremonial principles contrary to those of the New Testament; that it refuses to condemn (though it does not sanction) the practices of any other nation; that it claims in the same spirit the old Catholic right to set forward an English use for its own people: that it declares its changes to be mainly necessitated by the use of a dead language, and by the existence of those abuses of avarice and ignorant superstition, which forced the Church to abolish certain ceremonies that in themselves were of godly intent; that it declares its preference, wherever it is